Drive shaft supports are most commonly used to mount rolling contact bearing assemblies. A typical application would be a drive shaft center support assembly for a two or four wheel drive vehicle.
Center supports for such drive shafts usually have a two part outer metal bracket assembly surrounding the support. The major bracket part is normally U-shape and is assembled with a straight bracket part. The bracket parts enclose the rubber portion of the support assembly into which the bearing and retaining parts are press fit. In order to retain the rubber part against axial movement the bracket parts are channel shape in transverse section. This greatly increases the cost of the bracket parts, particularly the major U-shape bracket part.
When the shaft support is assembled it is secured by fasteners to the underside of the vehicle frame with the straight bracket part against the frame. It is important that the center of the bearing and thus the drive shaft be precisely located since the shaft has to be connected through universal joints to the transmission and differential. The positioning of the support is usually done from one of the fasteners thus requiring that the dimension from that fastener hole in the bracket to the center of the bearing be precisely held. This is difficult to do where the rubber part and the bracket and bearing retainers are separately formed and assembled.
Also, when the parts are separately formed and assembled as indicated there is a tendency for the parts in use to vibrate or move with respect to each other, and the outer race of the bearing may tend to move or rotate with respect to the rubber portion of the support. If this occurs premature failure may occur leading to problems with the entire drive train. The inability to hold the bearing center location tolerance simply makes the wear problems caused by vibration or rotation of the outer race worse.
It would therefore be desirable to provide a drive shaft support which would avoid the tolerance, vibration, or race rotation problems, and yet which would be easier and less expensive to produce.